Michigan astronaut to speak at MCC

Like many kids growing up in Michigan in the 1960s, Drew Feustel was hooked on “The Jetsons” and “Lost in Space.” He was fascinated by the prospects of moving about in outer space.

He was convinced that some day we would all be astronauts living in outer space.

Fast-forward 40-plus years, and most of us have never left the Earth’s atmosphere. More Flintstones than Jetsons. But Feustel has. As a mission specialist for NASA, he participated in two space shuttle missions in 2009 and 2011. Personally, his wildest imagination was converted to reality. Now, he hopes to motivate today’s youth to dream their own dreams in hopes of traveling where only a select few have traveled before.

Feustel is the keynote speaker for “Summer Skies at Macomb,” a family friendly event at Macomb Community College’s South Campus in Warren on June 14. The event takes place from 7:30 p.m. to 1 a.m., and Feustel will speak from 8:30-9:15 p.m. in the John Lewis Student and Community Center (K Building). Feustel will talk about his experiences aboard a space shuttle, “going outside” or space walking, and his training, augmented with video, audio and still pictures from outer space.

“I was always fascinated by space and space flight, and as I got older I felt that would be an opportunity for me. And I held on to that dream, that goal. The space shuttle program got underway when I was in high school, and that was very exciting to me,” Feustel said in a telephone interview. “At that time I wasn’t fixated on space. But I would allow my imagination to run wild, and I’d think that when I grow up, people are all going to be astronauts. If people are going into space and walking on the moon now, that’s what everybody will be doing in the future.”

When he finished high school, Feustel worked as an auto mechanic restoring 1950s Jaguars while attending Oakland Community College. After that, he attended Purdue University, not only because so many family members had graduated from there, but also because so had many astronauts. Automotive design and geology and geophysics were his focus, but geology ultimately became a priority, and indirectly began pushing him closer to the Johnson Space Center in Houston. After graduating from Purdue with a bachelor’s degree in earth sciences and a master’s in geophysics, he moved on to Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, Canada and earned his Ph.D. in geological sciences, specializing in mining seismology. He then worked for three years in Canada before landing a job with Exxon in Houston as an exploration geophysicist in 1997. Only a short time later, he made his first contact with nearby NASA and was selected as a mission specialist in 2000. NASA astronauts are made up of roughly 50 percent civilians and 50 percent military, and Feustel’s educational background and experience made him a perfect candidate for technical duties required in space missions. His operational skills, field work, and hands-on work with hardware provided a decent carryover to what would be required by NASA.

The dream was now in clear focus.

During the next nine years, Feustel immersed himself in astronaut training. And in 2009, he served on the crew of STS-125, the final space shuttle mission to the Hubble space telescope. During that mission, he logged almost 13 days in space and a total of almost 21 hours in three EVAs, or “extra-vehicular activity,” otherwise known as going outside the spacecraft or spacewalking.

Feustel said describing the experience of spacewalking is difficult.

“It’s an amazing, almost magical experience to be outside in a spacesuit moving around,” he said. “It’s pretty spectacular, knowing that the human body is floating out there revolving around the planet. I like to tell folks it’s kind of like a dream. The way that you would dream it would be like in space is kind how it is. Earth looks fragile and beautiful from space. And it gives you a slightly different appreciation for what we are doing and how we take care of our planet. And you realize how important it is to continue to develop the capability to live off of it or at least to study it from space.”

For the second mission in 2011, Feustel launched on space shuttle Endeavour’s final mission for STS-134 to the International Space Station. As lead spacewalker, he logged more than 21 hours in three EVAs. The mission delivered the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS), a state-of-the-art cosmic ray particle physics detector designed to examine fundamental issues about matter and the origin and structure of the universe.

Feustel admitted space travel is also a test of the nerves, from the liftoff, which can’t be fully experienced in simulation, to taking that one giant leap out of the spacecraft for the first time.

“It’s easy to be white-knuckled opening the hatch and seeing nothing but the Earth below, and you’re getting ready to climb around. That’s a little bit overwhelming as well,” he said. “But you get past it fairly quickly because we spend so much time training for those activities that your mind suddenly goes into work mode, and you get busy and do your thing. But if you stop and think about for a minute, it’s easy to get overwhelmed by where you are and what you are doing.”

If there is a downside to space travel, Feustel said it is the need to recondition your body after returning home. After only two weeks in space, it is difficult to walk again on terra firma. There are balance and strength problems trying to readjust to Earth’s gravity field. Muscle and nerve stimulation are the issues because leg muscles haven’t been firing in such a way that is required to walk vertically. Astronauts can exercise and have resistance training in space, but none of it replaces walking in an environment with gravity.

These days, Feustel spends most of his time supporting the space flight program, preparing other astronauts to go into space and debriefing them when they come home. He doesn’t know if he will ever be in space again, but he hopes the opportunity presents itself again.

“I’m open to that and I’m an active astronaut. Hopefully in the future I’ll have a chance to pursue that again,” he said.

Other activities at the “Summer Skies at Macomb” program include: demonstrations on how “cold” space is; a participatory play about the constellation Andromeda; comet-making activity for children; a presentation on great telescopes of the world; experiences of two eclipse “chasers”; an overview of the wonders of the night sky; star lab — a planetarium show for kids age 8 and older; and miscellaneous children’s crafts. Activities and presentations are from 7:30-11 p.m., with star gazing from 10:30 p.m.-1 a.m.

All events are free, but Drew Feustel’s presentation requires preregistration by calling 586-445-7204 or emailing communityrelations@macomb.edu. All other activities do not require advanced registration.